Microsoft recently announced it has collaborated with Mozilla on standardizing an RSS icon in the new IE7 browsers. Although to the blogosphere this may hit home a bit, to the average person I would imagine the reaction to be something along the lines of "whoopty-do".

The true story here isn't necessarily the RSS icon, but a trend the Microsoft IE7 development team has been following as of late. In fact, dare I say, a whole new attitude. Microsoft seems to be embracing cross-browser and platform standards much more than in previous efforts, and I am very excited about the results and the implications. Hearing words such as "usability" and "standards" coming out of the Microsoft camp usually turn heads, but it has been happening with increased frequency.

In the end, standards can only be a good thing, and it definitely symoblozes huge strides advocates such as WASP have made in raising awareness among the Web and software communities.